Good People Brewing Company welcomes Mike Cooley for Camp McDowell benefit on October 12

Drive-By Truckers co-founder Mike Cooley is a Tuscumbia, Alabama native; a current resident of the Magic City. His solo performances aren't frequent but he'll bring one to Good People Brewing Company on Saturday, October 12 as part of a fundraiser for Camp McDowell. The project expands the camp's facilities and programs for kids and adults with disabilities, establishes an on-site farm and farm education program and creates a permanent home for the Alabama Folk School. Tickets are $25, but will increase to $30 on October 1. For more information about how to reserve your ticket today, visit campmcdowell.dioala.org.

I spoke to Cooley about Dexateens bassist Matt Patton becoming a permanent part of the band, if the band has plans on replacing John Neff and how "Zip City" almost never happened.

BE: Will you continue to tour behind it? There was a moment that you said you'd take a break for a while, and I'm not sure how much of a break you actually took. You kept playing a lot of shows. Will you keep touring behind the new record?

MC: Oh yeah. We'll be back out touring like crazy once it comes out. Drive-By Truckers didn't really tour a lot, the last three years. We played a lot of shows, but that's as "off" as we can get.

BE: So that was more, a show here and a show there on a weekend, not loading into a bus and staying on a bus for a few weeks at a time?

MC: Yeah, we did a few things that were 10 days to two weeks. We did several of those; we've got one of those coming up. And then a couple of fly outs. Festivals, stuff like that. But we weren't doing three weeks on, one week off like we did when we put out a record.

BE: I guess Matt [Patton] is officially a part of the band now and is recording this new record. How has he meshed with you two guys that have been playing together for over 20 years?

MC: He's been great. He's been totally great. The Dexateens/Drive-By Truckers thing - it goes back a long time. You know, we've liked each other's bands, each other's songs. We've toured together. We're into a lot of the same things, come from a lot of the same mindsets. So it was a natural fit. He just jumped right in.

BE: Does Matt Patton ever get angry?

MC: No. He does, but he doesn't make a big deal out of it.

BE: Will you ever replace John, or will you just leave that spot open?

BE: [laughs] I'm not sure I had heard that until he mentioned it. How long did y'all play under that name?

MC: Oh, like a week. But, I like it better than Drive-By Truckers. Google Horse[expletive] and see what you come up with.

BE: Oh, I did. I didn't want to click any of those links, Mike. [laughs]

MC: Now I know what to do when the kids go to bed tonight. [laughs]

BE: Will you revise the verse about Birmingham being scary in "One of These Days" to include the Barons championship? [via: @Brice_Johnson]

MC: NO. [laughs] No.

BE: Do you still think Birmingham is scary even though things have gotten a little better?

MC: The song is set when it was, [expletive], so it stays like it is. That's what I do - I freeze things in time. If I want to write something about it now, you know, the tourism board can make me an offer like everybody else does.

BE: What city is making the best music right now? [via: @Bobby_Barkley]

MC: I don't know. There's a big, big buzz around Brooklyn, and they are kind of exploding. Nashville has really jumped back up. A lot of good music is coming out of there that's not nestled under a big ass cowboy hat with a headset mic. Athens and Austin are always churning out good stuff. But I guess if you ask the hipster consensus right now, Brooklyn is the mecca.

BE: After you wrote "Zip City," did you sit back and think "Holy [expletive], this kicks ass?" [via: @McLoofus]

MC: [laughs] No, I wrote it to bring myself out of a slump in songwriting. I thought, "What can I think of just make myself write a song?" and that was it.

I had no idea it was gonna be on an album and become a fan favorite. If I had known that, I'd have probably buried it.

BE: Was it based in any kind of truth? Did that relationship happen in your life at some point?

MC: About half of it. Well, about a third of it. The reason it became a fan favorite is because a fraction of that story happened to everybody, and still does. And I didn't realize it. When I was writing it, I had no idea it would have that kind of appeal. I was just trying to write something to see if I still could.

When guys tell that story, it's always, you know, the part about you being in it is about the only shred of truth to it.

MC: Man, for a long time I was totally, definitely Rolling Stones. But in recent years, I've been like, you know what? They're equally great for equally different reasons. It should have always been that way.

BE: How did you get involved with this event at Good People with Camp McDowell?

MC: It was actually a friend of a friend. I was asked if I could do it, and I checked to see if I was available and I was. I'm not involved with the organization anymore than that, although, it's a good organization which I've known about for years.

I have a pretty good life. It's [laughs] it's actually okay to write and record and perform songs and that be pretty much all I ever have to do. So, if I'm available and I get asked to do something for somebody that's not as lucky as I am, I'm kind of an [expletive] if I don't.

BE: Did you see "Muscle Shoals?"

MC: I haven't yet. Hell, it was playing here at the Alabama Theater and we were playing at the Georgia Theater in Athens. But it hasn't officially come out yet, so I have my fingers crossed that they'll give it a run here in town after it's released.

BE: What do you think of John Paul White's new project in Florence, Single Lock Records?

MC: To be honest, I don't know anything about it.

BE: What do you think of the way that scene has evolved? I guess they kind of held the fort down when y'all went away...

MC: I don't know how it happened, but it's definitely changed. What's amazing, is that you have FAME exactly like it was, still there, still operating. But you have had all of these bands that have come together, and that was not going on when we were there - that's why we left. Everything musically that was going on was happening within the confines of a couple of studios, and even that was slowing down then. There was zero live music. It's only pretty recently become a wet county, where you could actually have clubs. I had been gone almost 20 years before they started actually having live music venues that didn't have some despicable reputation, you know? [laughs]

I'm pretty amazed. I don't venture in there very much. When I go, I go visit my family and I come back to Birmingham. I don't venture into Muscle Shoals very often. Every time I do, it's kind of unrecognizable. We played a show at the University of North Alabama. And I was driving down Court Street, leaving a show, which would be "Main" Street in Florence, and people were out. And about. And it was vibrant. And things were open. And I was like, "This is not what it was...25 years ago." This was boarded up, not necessarily "boarded up," but the sidewalks were rolled up before dark. And, you know, none of this was going on.

I don't know what brought it about. I think the internet changed a lot of things in towns like that. Because it brought people that had been under a bubble and disconnected in, and connected to all the same information and input that everybody else was. And that probably had a greater impact that anything.

BE: I actually grew up in Rogersville, down the street...

MC: They may still be in a bubble [laughs].

BE: They are. [laughs]

MC: I was actually in Tuscumbia, not long ago, and I was looking down mainstreet and it was like I had gone into a worm hole and stepped back into 1991.